Pruning in Our Food Forests: Working With Trees, Wildlife, and Our Own Backs

Oct 14

Written By Kevin Wallace

Why we stopped pruning our fruit and nut trees by the textbook, what the extension services still get right, and how coppicing and chop-and-drop fit a food forest in Central New York

Back in 2024 I wrote three short articles on pruning on the same day (1)(2)(3). The first covered the standard system: central leader, open center, thinning cuts and heading cuts, the tools. The second listed the types of growth worth removing: water sprouts, suckers, crossing branches, dead and diseased wood. The third explained why we had moved away from that standard system in our food forests. All three still hold. What they did not do was put the pieces together, check them against the research, or say where the old advice and our new approach disagree.

This version does that. It starts with how a tree actually responds to a cut, walks through what we prune for today, adds the older tools of coppicing, pollarding, and chop-and-drop, and is honest about what is verified and what is just our experience on one property.

Why pruning looks different in a food forest

A commercial orchard prunes for one thing: the most marketable fruit per acre. A food forest has more jobs. Our trees feed us, feed the wildlife, shade the understory, drop leaves that build soil, and have to hold up in our winters.

Our food forests are unfenced. Deer, squirrels, raccoons, and many kinds of birds have free access to the fruit and nut trees (3). We have lost good trees to deer rub, and deer have pulled down many lower limbs to get at leaves and fruit (3). Rather than fence them out, we changed how we prune.

The other reason is less scientific. Our bodies are older. Ducking under low limbs to mow or work around the trees got harder every year, so we now take limbs off at heights that let us work under the trees without the strain (3).

The 2003 ice storm and what it taught me about limbs

In my food forests article I described the 2003 ice storm (4). We lost thousands of trees, including nearly all the fruit trees in our first food forest, and cleanup with Optimus Prime, our David Brown Case 995 tractor, took about two years.

Ice is a structural test, and the storm showed us two kinds of failure. Young softwood trees, including white birch and our young apple trees, were bent completely over. On older, mature trees, limbs snapped off under the tremendous weight of the ice. The leaves were still on the trees, so they held even more ice, and in some areas almost every tree was damaged. I did not dare go into the forested areas. It sounded like explosions around the clock until the ice melted.

In my 2024 list I noted that narrow-angled branches create weak junctions where the weight of fruit or ice can snap them (2). That is the lesson from the storm that belongs in every pruning plan here: favor wide branch angles, and do not let a tree carry weak forks or overloaded limbs into a Central New York winter.

Drought and wind

Ice is not our only test. Every planting here has to hold up to prolonged summer droughts, and we are now four to five years running with them, and to high winds. Both have been issues over the years, and they still are. That shapes how we prune: we avoid big cuts that leave a tree with too little leaf to feed itself through a dry summer, and we keep limbs short and stout enough to stand up to the wind.

How a tree responds to a cut

Most pruning mistakes come from forgetting that every cut is a signal to the tree.

Thinning cuts remove a whole branch back to where it started. The University of Minnesota calls these "usually the recommended type of cut" (5).
Heading cuts remove only part of a branch, and they push new growth just below the cut (5). Penn State puts it bluntly for apples and pears: "Heading cuts are the main culprit of excessive growth," and continual heading can stop flowering altogether (6).
Heavy pruning wakes the tree up. Penn State lists overpruning, along with overfertilizing, as a main reason home fruit trees grow lots of wood and no fruit, and heavy winter pruning stimulates excessive growth and water sprouts (6). That matches what I wrote in 2024: water sprouts often follow heavy pruning or damage (2).

The practical rule: thin more, head less, and take a little every year instead of a lot in one year.

Where to cut

Cut just outside the branch collar, the swollen ring where a branch joins the trunk or a larger limb (1)(5). Do not cut flush with the trunk, and do not leave a long stub. For big limbs, Minnesota describes a three-cut method: an undercut first, then a cut farther out to drop the weight, then the final cut at the collar, so the bark does not tear down the trunk (5).

Wound paint

Minnesota Extension says wound dressing "is not normally needed on pruning cuts," with an exception for oaks where insects can spread disease such as oak wilt (5). We do not paint cuts.

When to prune in our climate

This is where my 2024 article needs a correction. I wrote that we avoid pruning in early spring (1). The extension services, and my own later posts, say otherwise for most trees here.

Most trees and shrubs: Minnesota says "the late dormant season is the best time for most pruning" (5). Here that means late winter to early spring, before buds break.
Stone fruit (peach, plum, tart cherry): Penn State says prune from just before bloom to two weeks after petal fall, and not from January through March, because winter cuts leave stone fruit open to cytospora canker. Sweet cherries are the exception, best pruned after fruiting or in early July (7).
Light summer work: removing water sprouts and some extra growth in summer is reasonable (1).

Our own posts already follow this for several plants. Our hazelnuts get pruned in early spring before new growth starts (8). Our currants are pruned in late winter while dormant (9). Our Chicago Hardy and Brown Turkey figs get pruned twice: once in spring when we uncover them, to remove dead wood, and again at the beginning of June to keep them as low bushes that are easier to protect for winter (10).

What we prune for today

The standard central leader and open center shapes are good systems, and Penn State's open center guide is the clearest one I know for stone fruit (7). We just do not use them as our goal anymore (3). Today our pruning comes down to a short list.

1. Dead, diseased, damaged

This never changes. Start every tree by removing dead, broken, and diseased wood, and cut back to healthy wood (1)(2). If disease is present, clean your tools between cuts (2).

2. Structure that will fail

Remove crossing and rubbing branches, and narrow-angled forks that will split under fruit, ice, or wind (2). Penn State recommends scaffold limbs at 60 to 90 degrees from vertical on open-center trees (7).

3. Deer height

We cut back large lower limbs that hold fruit and will sag, because deer can easily pull those down (3). But we do not prune off all the lower limbs. The ones we keep below about 5.5 to 6 feet are short, stout, non-fruiting stubs. In our experience they reduce deer rub on the trunks, which is what kills trees (3), they give the deer easy low browsing, and they make the deer less likely to pull down the larger limbs above.

On a very mature tree, we have no large limbs below about 5.5 to 6 feet. On a younger tree, I allow lateral limbs at that height as it grows, until the trunk has a greater caliper and there is plenty of growth above. Then those laterals come back to short stubs.

We also see more life around those stubs. In our experience there are more spider webs, more insects, and more flowering next to them, and they seem more inviting for ground-level spiders.

The weak spot is my own. I do not thin fruit as much as I should, so even the higher branches bend down a lot under the crop. Deer stand on their hind legs to reach them, and there goes another big limb. Thinning the fruit would help.

4. Our working height

We take off branches at heights that let us mow and work under the trees without ducking (3).

5. Shade and air, lightly

Thin crowded centers so light and air reach the inside. That cuts fungal disease and improves fruit (1)(2). But we no longer prune for maximum harvest, and we deliberately leave part of the fruit for wildlife (3).

6. Suckers and water sprouts

Remove most of them (2), but remember they are a symptom. Lots of water sprouts usually means the tree was cut too hard, or was damaged (2)(6).

7. Trees that outgrow their place

Some trees just get big. I planted Shademaster thornless honey locusts about 20 years ago, and they are now so massive I need an aerial lift to prune them (11). That is a design lesson as much as a pruning one: plant for mature size, not nursery size.

Summary table: what we cut and why

What to cut	Why	When	Source
Dead, diseased, damaged wood	Hazard, disease entry point, wasted energy	Any time; clean tools if disease is present	Our 2024 posts (1)(2); UMN (5)
Crossing branches and narrow forks	Rub wounds; weak junctions that split under fruit or ice	Late dormant season	Our 2024 post (2); Penn State (7)
Large lower limbs that hold fruit and sag	Deer pull them down; keep short, stout non-fruiting stubs below 5.5 to 6 feet to reduce trunk rub	Late dormant season	Our 2024 post (3); our experience
Limbs at our working height	Mowing and work under trees without ducking	Late dormant season	Our 2024 post (3)
Water sprouts and suckers	Shade the center; often a sign of overpruning	Summer or dormant season	Our 2024 post (2); Penn State (6)
Stone fruit thinning	Light and air against brown rot and canker	Just before bloom to two weeks after petal fall	Penn State (7)
Coppice stools	Regrow poles, mulch, and habitat on a rotation	Dormant season	National Coppice Federation (12); Woodland Trust (13)

Coppicing, pollarding, and chop-and-drop

Pruning does not have to mean shaping. Some of the oldest tree management in the world treats the cut itself as a harvest.

Coppicing

When many broadleaf trees are cut near the ground, they do not die. They send up new shoots from the stump, called a stool, from dormant buds under the bark (12). Hazel, sweet chestnut, willow, and ash are classic examples (12). The Woodland Trust says the best time to coppice is late September to early March, while trees are dormant, and gives cycles such as about 7 years for hazel (13). Cut close to the ground, make a clean, sloped cut so water runs off, and do not tear the bark from the wood (13).

The catch for us is deer. The Woodland Trust warns that new coppice shoots are attractive to deer and other browsers, and suggests piling brush over the stools, building dead hedges from the cut material, or fencing for at least two years (13). In an unfenced food forest like ours, that is a real limit, and we do not coppice in the food forests now.

Around the beaver ponds we do coppice. Sometimes I do it with a flail mower. It is not a perfect cut, but it gives the beavers a flush of young shoots ahead of winter.

Pollarding

Pollarding is the same idea, cut higher. The upper branches are cut back regularly to a head on the trunk, above the reach of browsing animals (13). The Woodland Trust gives target heights from about 1.2 m for roe deer to 1.8 m for red deer (13). Our white-tailed deer are not on that list, so treat those numbers as a guide only.

Chop-and-drop

Chop-and-drop just means cutting prunings or support plants and leaving them on the ground under the trees, where they break down into mulch and soil. In my food forests article I listed chop-and-drop with compost and leaf mold as how we keep the fertility cycling (4), and noted that much of the benefit of nitrogen-fixing plants comes when their leaves, roots, or prunings break down (4). It fits the way we already use wood chips and leaves to build soil on our gravel (Why I Use and Love Wood Chips) (14).

One warning: do not chop and drop diseased wood. That goes out of the food forest.

What the permaculture books add

For further reading, the classic books are Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (15), Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier's Edible Forest Gardens (16), and Martin Crawford's Creating a Forest Garden (17). Our copies are packed in storage bins since our workshop collapsed, so I have not quoted them here. David Holmgren's principles put the idea in plain words: Obtain a Yield, and Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services (18). A cut that regrows is a renewable resource.

Tools we use

Three-legged orchard ladders. In a food forest, with uneven ground and plantings all around, these are the safest ladders we have found for both pruning and harvesting.
Harvest pouches. We wear them on the ladder, so both hands stay free and we are not climbing up and down with a basket.
Long-handled extensions for bypass pruners. They let us reach high and prune without climbing at all.
Hand pruners, loppers, and a pruning saw for small, medium, and large wood, kept sharp and clean (1).

Grapes, berries, and figs are their own thing

Woody vines and bushes do not follow tree rules.

Concord grapes: we spur prune, cutting the previous season's shoots back to two or three buds along the cordons. Concords tend to have fruitful buds near the base of the cane, they are vigorous, and spur pruning is simpler (19). Minnesota Extension covers cold-climate grape pruning in detail (20).
Heritage red raspberries: in early spring we remove weak or damaged canes, and you can cut all canes to the ground in early spring for one big fall crop instead of two (21).
Currants: red and pink currants fruit mostly on two- and three-year-old wood, so take out canes older than about three years. Black currants fruit best on one-year wood, so take out anything older than two or three (9).
Figs: pruned in spring and again in early June to keep them low (10).

How pruning connects to our four ethics

Our site works from four ethics adapted from the three classic ones: Self-Care, Earth Care, People Care, and Future Care.

Self-Care. We prune for bodies that are getting older. Working height matters as much as tree shape.
Earth Care. We leave fruit for wildlife, coppice browse for the beavers, keep short lower stubs to protect trunks from rub, and return prunings to the soil as chop-and-drop and chips.
People Care. Sharing what worked and what did not, including where my own earlier advice was wrong, so others do not repeat our mistakes.
Future Care. Good structure on a young tree is a gift to whoever tends it in 40 years, and to whatever ice storm comes next.

Honest caveats

Our approach is experience, not a trial. Pruning for deer and for our backs is what works on one unfenced property in Oswego County. I have not measured the effect on yield.
We trade yield for other goals. The extension guides are written to maximize fruit. If that is your main goal, follow them more closely than we do.
Short, stout lower stubs are our experience. We see less trunk rub and more spiders, insects, and flowering around them, but I have not found an extension source that tests it.
Drought and wind are getting harder. Four to five years of summer drought in a row means every cut has to leave a tree enough leaf to get through.
Timing depends on the species. Stone fruit, oaks, and grapes all have their own rules. Check before you cut.
Coppicing needs deer control. Without it, new shoots may simply be eaten.
Ladders, saws, and aerial lifts are dangerous. Large limbs near power lines or over buildings are a job for an arborist.

How to start

Walk each tree in late winter. Look before you cut. Decide what the tree is for: fruit, nuts, shade, wildlife, or all of them.
Start with the three Ds. Dead, diseased, damaged, every time.
Fix the structure. Crossing branches and narrow forks, especially on young trees, before the ice finds them.
Thin, do not top. Use thinning cuts, avoid repeated heading cuts, and spread big changes over several years.
Cut at the collar. Use the three-cut method on big limbs, and skip the wound paint.
Check the species. Stone fruit in the bloom window, sweet cherries after fruiting, figs and berries on their own schedules.
Put the prunings to work. Healthy wood goes back as chop-and-drop or chips. Diseased wood goes out.

On our website

You can follow along on our YouTube channel, Growing a Better Tomorrow. Please leave a comment below and tell us how you prune in your own food forest. Thank you.

References

(1) Wallace K. Basic Pruning of Fruit and Nut Trees in a Food Forest. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/basic-pruning-of-fruit-and-nut-trees-in-a-food-forest

(2) Wallace K. Essential Pruning for a Healthy Food Forest: Managing Unwanted Tree Growth. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/essential-pruning-for-a-healthy-food-forest-managing-unwanted-tree-growth

(3) Wallace K. Pruning Techniques in a Regenerative Food Forest: Moving Beyond Traditional Methods. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/pruning-techniques-in-a-regenerative-food-forest-moving-beyond-traditional-methods

(4) Wallace K. Introduction to Permaculture Food Forests. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2026. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/introduction-to-permaculture-food-forests-components-and-benefits

(5) University of Minnesota Extension. Pruning trees and shrubs. https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/pruning-trees-and-shrubs

(6) Penn State Extension. Home Orchards: Why is There No Fruit on My Tree? https://extension.psu.edu/home-orchards-why-is-there-no-fruit-on-my-tree

(7) Penn State Extension. Pruning and Training Home Fruit Trees to an Open Center. https://extension.psu.edu/pruning-and-training-home-fruit-trees-to-an-open-center

(8) Wallace K. Growing Hazelnut Bushes: A Comprehensive Guide. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/growing-hazelnut-bushes-a-comprehensive-guide

(9) Wallace K. Growing Currant Bushes: A Guide to Our Nursery's Red, Black, and Pink Currants. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2026. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/growing-currant-bushes-a-guide-to-our-nurserys-red-black-and-pink-currants

(10) Wallace K. Growing Chicago Hardy and Brown Turkey Fig Trees in Zone 5a Cold Temperate Climate. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/growing-chicago-hardy-and-brown-turkey-fig-trees-in-zone-5a-cold-temperate-climate

(11) Wallace K. Introduction to Permaculture. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2026. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/introduction-to-permaculture

(12) National Coppice Federation. Coppicing in a Nutshell. https://ncfed.org.uk/public/coppicing/

(13) Woodland Trust. Types of woodland management. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/managing-trees-and-woods/types-of-woodland-management/

(14) Wallace K. Why I Use and Love Wood Chips. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/why-i-use-and-love-wood-chips

(15) Mollison B. Permaculture: A Designers' Manual. Tagari Publications; 1988. https://openlibrary.org/search?q=Permaculture+A+Designers+Manual+Mollison

(16) Jacke D, Toensmeier E. Edible Forest Gardens. Chelsea Green; 2005. https://openlibrary.org/search?q=Edible+Forest+Gardens+Jacke

(17) Crawford M. Creating a Forest Garden. Green Books; 2010. https://openlibrary.org/search?q=Creating+a+Forest+Garden+Crawford

(18) Holmgren D. Essence of Permaculture. Holmgren Design Services; English version 7.1, 2013. https://holmgren.com.au/downloads/Essence_of_Pc_EN.pdf

(19) Wallace K. Pruning Methods for Grape Vines. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/pruning-methods-for-grape-vines

(20) University of Minnesota Extension. Growing grapes in the home garden. https://extension.umn.edu/fruit/growing-grapes-home-garden

(21) Wallace K. Growing and Maintaining Heritage Red Raspberry Plants. Mindful Living Sanctuary; 2024. https://www.mindfullivingsanctuary.com/articles/growing-and-maintaining-heritage-red-raspberry-plants

Kevin Wallace